Food provides a deep and rich source of factoids, so proved by the enduringly insightful QI food podcast Lunchbox Envy (online).
Launched last year, the weekly show – hosted by two question-setting ‘elves’ from the BBC’s QI programme, Jack Chambers and Manu Henriot, as well as chef and food writer Rosie Mackean – has asked and answered a long list of culinary questions like: Can you unboil an egg? How much Dairy Milk would it take to kill you? And why is swiss cheese holey?
In the latest episode, the trio explore chillies from the benign bell pepper to the world’s hottest Pepper X (“these aren’t particularly edible, when you eat one your eyes stream, your mouth’s on fire, you’re dribbling” Chambers explains) and everything in between.
Like how capsaicin – the ‘active ingredient’ in chillies – is odourless and flavourless and tricks our brains into experiencing heat. And how it doesn’t affect birds (which spread seeds). Or that the word capsicum comes from the Latin word capsa, meaning ‘box’. Or how Wilbur Scoville devised his heat scale. Or how the “most famous peddler of peri peri” Nando’s made ubiquitous the Anglicised spelling over the original piri piri, Mackean shares, adding “I think it sounds like perineum”. And how, by the way, Chambers notes, the chain is one of “very few places on the high street you can get liver”.
And so on and so on. Like an upturned, lidless Perinaise, the outpouring of facts comes thick and fast. A ‘huh’ moment comes twice a minute or more. Which is thrilling at first, but can be a little overwhelming – some intra-new-knowledge meandering mindless chat wouldn’t go amiss.
Nevertheless, it’s an incredibly well-researched, snappily delivered ragbag of foodie facts you’ll be sharing at least a handful of with whoever will listen.
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